Minor adjustment to Guidelines For Respectful Communication

[hasufell]

When reading https://github.com/todogroup/opencodeofconduct/blob/gh-pages/index.md I found that the wording is much better.

Compare:

Be welcoming: We strive to be a community that welcomes and supports people of all backgrounds and identities. This includes, but is not limited to members of any race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, colour, immigration status, social and economic class, educational level, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, size, family status, political belief, religion, and mental and physical ability.

With the HF text:

We do not tolerate any form of discriminatory language or behaviour towards any minority (for example age, body size, disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation).

The problems I see with the HF text is:

• although not intentionally, it feels like it's saying "discriminatory language is ok against majorities"
• unlike the open code of conduct text, it specifically omits "political belief" (why?)

I say this, because I have repeatedly seen discriminatory language and toxic behavior in the Haskell community against e.g. other Haskellers based on their political belief.

I'm not sure anyone reads the guidelines that closely, but it's hard to point to a community document saying "we welcome all people, regardless of their political belief, as long as they follow our guidelines for respectful communication", because that is simply not what the text says.

---

So what I propose is a wording like:

We do not tolerate any form of discriminatory language or behaviour, especially towards minorities, and strive to welcome people of all backgrounds and identities (for example age, body size, disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, political belief, religion, or sexual identity and orientation).

[andreabedini]

FWIW I would prefer using a positive language like the text you quoted.
Compare "be welcoming" to our "we do not tolerate".

[Kleidukos]

That's a good rephrasing, I agree with @andreabedini

[hasufell]

Right, given that it's not really an enforceable policy... it seems positive language is more appropriate.

[jmct]

Thanks for bringing this up. There's actually a board meeting this week.

I'll make sure this is on the agenda.

[tomjaguarpaw]

Thanks for flagging this up @hasufell. I like your suggestion.

As a point of information, I believe these guidelines were taken directly from the GHC Steering Committee guidelines, published here:

https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/master/GRC.rst

There's no reason the HF's guidelines couldn't diverge, of course, and no reason both bodies couldn't adopt the same change at the same time. It's worth discussing further.

[simonpj]

I like the change. "Be welcoming" is much better than "We do not tolerate..".

Moreover I suggest that we move that "Be welcoming" paragraph to be the first bullet, not the last.